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pc_05 03 1988MINUTES PLANNING HEARING MAY 3, 1988 1 :00 P.M. The meeting was called to order at 1 :00 p.m. by Chairman David J. Jones. A quorum was present (David J. Jones, Walter Riddick, III, Rose Collins, T. Grace Jones, Stephen Leek, Richard Massie, Martha Miller, Jerilyn Nicholson, Fred Perkins, Bill Rector, John Schlereth). There were no absences. The Chairman asked for a motion to approve the minutes of the March 22nd meeting. A motion was made by Commissioner Rector and seconded by Commissioner Leek to approve the minutes as received. The motion passed unanimously. Item #1 - Port South District Land Use Plan Mr. Gary Greeson gave a brief presentation of the plan. He said that it was about a nine square mile area and most of it is being farmed or is undeveloped. Some 65% is either agriculture or floodplain usage. The area contains twenty -six homes that translates into about sixty -three residents. There is also public or open space usage in the area. Mr. Greeson pointed out that there were three industrial sites in the area also. Mr. Greeson said, however, they did not anticipate any significant residential development in the plan area, but it is one where they would seek to allow for industrial expansion particularly from the north where there have been some contacts in the past with the property owners. It was further stated by Mr. Greeson that the plan reflects an effort to protect some of the agricultural land. There were no objectors present. However, questions were raised by the commission members regarding how much open space area the City owned and its current usage. Commissioners David Jones stated that he was concerned about the plan. He said his concern was when they start designating large tracts of land as open space and more of less saying it is not going to affect anybody because it is all floodway or it is all mining property. Coloring it all green and calling it open space is not necessarily the correct way to proceed. Mr. Jones noted, for example, the Fourche Creek Plan and the Worth James property. Mr. Greeson stated that this was not the case in this plan. He said the only usage that he could see was beyond the levee. Once you get to the levee you get into very hazardous flooding situations, and all of the open space area is between the River and the levee. After discussion, a motion was made by Commissioner Nicholson and seconded by Commissioner Riddick to approve the plan. The motion passed by a vote of 11 ayes, 0 noes, and 0 absent. Item #2 - Zoning and Subdivision Ordinance Amendments Discussion Mr. Richard Wood presented and discussed the Ordinances before the commission members. He said that it was a specific list of items for review. Also he said let it be noted that it was a discussion of the packet that the Plans Committee had held two meetings on. Mr. Wood said there were a total of eighty-six changes in six ordinances, several that are written in the form of separate ordinances because they are controversial or difficult items that may need to be pulled out of the packet or dealt with at a different time. It was stated by Mr. Wood that the first item they would deal with would be the Notice Modification which had to do with re-zoning and other land use issues. Also he stated that the notice was created by the staff out of concerns from the League of Women Voters and other interested parties. He said the concerns that were related to the staff had to do with the size of the signs. It was felt that the signs were not visible when posted on sites. The Summit and Bale Chevrolet were used as examples. Mr. Wood pointed out the recommendation that was offered and the one that the staff prepared having to do with the ten acres and larger sites. There was lengthy discussion, and concerns were expressed by the board members regarding the size and price of the signs. Commissioner Rector stated that no one was objecting to the large signs, but he expressed concern about cost and signs that are all different. Mr. Wood said it was not the staff idea that the developers do this. He said the staff was going to do it and do it right like it should be done. Commissioner Schlereth said his recollection was that it was the consensus of the Plans Committee that the larger sign would be a lot more effective on a dollar spent basis than to institute a requirement of notification of a larger area by certified mail. There was other discussion regarding the abstract companies and their functions. Mr. Wood pointed out that the bylaws required that you use an abstract company. It was stated by Commissioner Massie that they needed to be conscious of the cost. He said he was in favor of the larger signs and certainly was in favor of people being notified but he really thought they needed to be careful about passing on huge costs with marginal returns. Commissioners Massie suggested that the planning staff develop a map that can be published in the paper that will give some general locations or something where people would take note if they saw a huge map showing eighteen different locations, where they're going to be zoned, the hearing next month or something like that. Mr. Greeson pointed out that again they would get into the cost problem, that ads are pretty expensive, plus a lot of people don't even look at the classified sections. He said he felt like the sign plus the additional notification time were more adequate than the map. Commissioner Schlereth said that he felt like they should try to enlarge the signs and have longer notification periods and if that doesn't work, then they could look at doing something else later. He said that there was no sense in an over kill in this situation. Also he said that he felt like adding to the notification requirement was just not called for at this time. It was stated by Mr. Wood that there was one remaining item which was the notice mailed fifteen days rather than the current ten before the hearing. He said it is his understanding that the League wanted thirty days. Ms. Kathleen Oleson, with the League of Women Voters, spoke concerning the sign requirement. She said their concern was to make sure the public was properly notified. Ms. Oleson said that the discussion on the length of time was two weeks but the league strongly believed that thirty days is necessary. She said they also agree that notification to neighbors in writing is important. After discussion, it was stated by Commissioner David Jones that he did have a problem with the way the City or any governmental agency has interpreted over the years what the requirements are for legal notices. What he noted was a double-standard. Commissioner Rector pointed out that a lot of times they get into discussions and defer something and nothing gets resolved. He also stated that a lot of times they get mom and pop folk who do not know what is going on, and to have them pay $800 bucks is a tremendous burden. He said the sign situation needed to be resolved. Ms. Darcia Norwood with Norwood Asphalt spoke concerning complaints that she had received from developers. She said that the people that it costs money were not here, but it would make her money if they made the changes. Ms. Norwood said she saw nothing wrong with the color of the signs and that the notifi- cation period was sufficent. There was other discussion by the commission members and Ms. Norwood regarding the issue. It was stated by the Chairman that they were not voting on any of the ordinances but they were basically discussing them. He said that from what he had heard, briefly, that some sought of an agreement or compromise where larger signs would be required, the 200 feet notification requirement could be retained, and maybe increase the notification period from ten days to fifteen days. Mr. Wood stated that the next item was a Subdivision Ordinance Amendment. He said what this does is provides for modifications of those two paragraphs currently in the ordinance that deal with the floodway where it provides an option for the developer to dedicate floodway or provide an easement. He said that it is proposed to make it a specific requirement that they dedicate to the public floodways in a plat. He said they would work through a proper title instrument that is associated with the plat so it would not just be shown on the plat as tract A to be dedicated as a floodway but there would be an instrument of record trans- ferring title. Mr. Greeson said the the need for it was to provide for protec- tion of the floodway and control by the City. The next item was the downtown parking issue which had been recommended from the Board of Adjustment. It is a direct result of several variances that were filed with the BOA over the last year of so. He said the board became concerned that they were handing out variances, and there were several properties that were going to be short of parking because there were existing surface parking areas that are being developed with buildings. Also some of the sites renting on a daily basis are changing over to monthly or longer terms which means they are not available to short term or day uses. The Board of Adjustment asked Anna Brown of our staff to look at some other Cities and look at some ideas as to how they might get a handle on this. The several recommen- dations in this element respond to the Board's request. The Board also wanted the Planning Commission's comments on the recommendations. There were some comments regarding the traffic jam on Broadway where the new hamburger stand has been constructed. It was stated by Mr. Greeson that he felt like in the next six months they would be bringing the parking study in the downtown area to the commission. After discussion, Commissioner Rector stated that the one thing that Richard had not attacked in the packet was the Central Little Rock Zoning Ordinance situation. He said he felt that the whole Central Little RockZoning Ordinance needed to be looked at. Also he said the reason you never see any re- zoning downtown is because you've got to have 45 to 90 thousand square feet before you can rezone. It was stated by Mr. Greeson that they were in the process of revising the Ordinance. Mr. Wood said the next element is the Subdivision Ordinance and contains sixteen changes and of those sixteen, there are a number that are significant: (1) the private street, (2) platted building lines that we are recommending be eliminated from recored plats, (3) the sidewalk issue, (4) setting a fixed time for termination of preliminary plats, and (5) the subdivision plat timing that is a specific termination point for preliminary plats instead of allowing them to go on forever. Buffers will also be covered in the zoning ordinance so that the two ordinances will have compatible buffer requirements. The last change would be the introduction of zero lot line platting provisions in the subdivision regulations. He said the balance of the included items are some definitions and clean up items that are of little consequence. There was much discussion of the buffer requirements by the commission members and staff. Commissioner Massie stated that he would like to point out two things regarding the buffer. One was that in some cases he question whether we wanted to always totally prohibit any driveways from going across a buffer strip. He said he thought that there were circumstances in the City, in the interst of traffic safety or something else, where there is a need to have a driveway across the buffer strip. Secondly he would like to ask the City Attorney if we require them to have 25 feet of undis- turbed buffer and then on top of that require them to put a sight proof fence interior to their property line, is it not possible that you could make a case that you are taking that property without compensation because you are so restricting them that the total enjoyment and use of the property is really for the adjacent neighbors. Attorney Giles said that it goes to what Walter said, it may be different in each case. It depends on what you are trying to protect on the other side of the property, the adjacent property and what use it is and whether the City's conditions are reason- able. Mr Giles said anytime you get into conditional rezoning or conditions of a plat you are going to tread on taking issues. He said it really would be difficult to sit here and say that you are going to establish a standard that is going to be met everytime somebody comes through. There were other discussions of the zoning ordinance package including, screening in the planned unit development section, yard encroachment by staff review, conditional use permit amendemnts by staff, parking computation for mixed use of retail and warehouse within a single building, car dealerships in C-3, and the office showroom warehouse issue raised by Gene Lewis in connection with a rezoning application that he had before the commisison. It was stated by Commissioner Jones that he had a whole bunch that he is interested in and asked Commissioner Nicholson when could she have some of them out of committee. Commissioner Nicholson said the most appropriate time would be when they advertise for a public hearing. It was stated by Mr. Wood that he would like to get their comments and feed them back to the Plans Committee at another Plans meeting in a month or so and let them look at all the information that comes in, make whatever adjustments they deem appropriate, and then bring back for a public hearing. After much deliberation, it was decided that the commission needed to go through them all as a commission because there were some issues that were not clear, especially regarding church parking. Mr. Wood explained the remaining elements in the packet and answered questions for the commission members. He said that in the future he would rather do ordinances on a monthly basis instead of compiling them as a packet for review. A number of Commission members expressed support for this idea. There being no further business before the Board, the meeting was adjourned at 3:15 p.m. Chairman Secretary Date